


All That Is Gold

by Django_Fett



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Emperor Hux, Eventual Smut, F/M, Force Bond, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Powers, Loss of Virginity, Mild Dark Side Rey, Protective Finn, Recovery, References to Depression, Slow Burn, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-02-15 04:43:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13023477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Django_Fett/pseuds/Django_Fett
Summary: "I see him turning the lightsaber to strike true, and now..." Snoke suddenly pauses. "Are you truly so foolish as to think it would be that easy?"When Kylo's attempt to take down Snoke goes horribly wrong, the two force users are left devastated by the trauma Snoke unleashes upon them both. With the help of Finn and Leia, Rey becomes determined to rebuild what has been taken from them.





	1. Fate

His knees ache.

He’d been kneeling for hours beneath Snokes throne, stripped down to the waist by Praetorian Guards shortly after Rey had been dragged away shouting his name. Whether it was for humiliation, or over exposure to the grueling assaults the guards placed on him he didn't know. Sharp twinges ate through his bones like some venomous rot, locking his joints in place. They haven't much time left, and if Rey is still alive, she knows it too.

He had been doomed from the start, blinded by the fleeting glimmer of hope he had found in Rey's defiance. They hadn't been able to hold Snoke off for long, nowhere near long enough to offer a chance of survival. The lightning and fire that bled from Snokes fingers had consumed everything, pushing him and Rey to the floor as ash and broken glass rained down around them.

When he woke he was burnt, covered in soot and blood, still lying on the floor of Snokes throne room. The air was thick with chemical haze and the rivers of smoke that crawled along the ceiling left his lungs drawing short frantic breaths for sustenance. It was hard to not find a hopeless joy in imagining a stray ember falling into the fumes and sending his prison into a toxic inferno. That thought process had begun days ago. He endures each day, surviving as they take more, and more, and more from him.

The knee connects with his chin with a thick crack, his head knocking back against the metal floor with a sickening crunch. Hot red trickles down from between his teeth and the open wound in his scalp, blood hot and congealed above the already dried clumps in his hair. Kylos head falls down to his chest with a groan of pain and it dances with the ringing noise tearing through his mind. The guards step away from him, letting his body slump to the floor.

Snokes feet dance near Kylos bleeding head. The creature high upon his throne dressed all in gold, watching Kylo heave with sick disinterest. "If you do not behave Ren, you will not learn."

"And if I behave I become a toy." He whispers bitterly. A hand tears into his hair and his head is forced upwards with a yell, tears brewing through reflex.

"For a toy you don't break easy."

The torturer is called Snoke. In this wasteland, he is God.

Kylo hisses from behind his clenched teeth, savouring the disgust in the creatures eyes as blood bubbles between their gaps. "You wouldn't have kept me," He swallows thickly, "-all these years if I did."

Snoke laughs at him. His hand moving across his bloodied hair as though petting a dog. "You will learn." He murmurs, pausing. "You don't believe in anything these days, I imagine?" He asks hollowly, reaching into his belt loop to remove a knife. Kylo eyes it as the creature prods at the inside of his cheek. “You have no faith in the dark side, nothing but concern for yourself.” Snoke spits. “You are shell of a man, A failure, Consumed by lust and ignorance."

"I have told you before,” He breathes, “I'm not as weak as you thi-"

"But you _are_." Snoke hisses, "You took the blood of your father for my approval, but became nothing more than a conniving rat." The Creature leers softly, as though that is enough to break him. As though Kylo didn't already know this himself. "I wonder if today, we can change things hm? If we wait for our friend before I allow you some small final training?" The lump in Kylos throat swells.

"I," Kylo said slowly, "I'd rather you'd just end it now."

Snoke eyes steeled. The creature snapped his blade shut and slowly stood, his rotting body a powerful image as he loomed above Kylo. He hesitates for a moment, watching Kylo attempt to regain use of his limbs. "You have bought this upon yourself, Kylo Ren. Do not think I repay treachery lightly." The door slams open and a figure covered with a black sack is dragged in. He turns to Kylo and tilts his head, "When death comes for you my boy, it will not be at your say.” The torturer watches as the sack is removed from the girls head, drinks in the too fast glimmer of pain that burns in his apprentice's eyes. In that moment, he knows. "Passion," He purrs slightly, not looking as the girl is pushed to kneel upright, "As you know, is favored by the dark side."

The pressure of the man's anger following him fills him with a drunken pleasure. "Passion leads to strength, Power, Victory-" Rey's eyes haven't left Kylo's. She's been left fully clothed, but a purpling bruise now spreads across the entirety of the left side of her face. Kylo tells himself she got it fighting back rather than through torture, and he sits up a little straighter. "You will not find Victory today." The creature says slowly, trailing a finger across Rey's neck, savoring the disgusted whimper that escapes her lungs.

"You'll gain nothing" She snarls through torn lips as Kylo remains motionless, "He's already been freed from you, He is one with the-" She flickers her eyes over to Kylo as he remains still and silent, and freezes.

_She'd always been so much braver than him._

__His eyes plead at her, and the weight of it all creates a chasm in her stomach that threatens to consume any hope she had clung to. “I’ll be okay.” She wonders if the words had really left her mouth, the fragility of the whisper folding in on itself in the air like steam. She watches his lip tremble for a second and knows only then that she might be lying to herself._ _

 

 

The fact becomes reality when her jaw is gripped and her scream merges with Kylo's roar as her arm is pulled out of its joint. The tears filling her eyes blur the sight of Kylo being restrained.

_It's not the first time you’ve hurt, she thinks numbly, suppressing her panic as the nausea reaches her brain. Remember Jakku, crashing that Speeder into-_

The thought leaves her brain as talons of Force Lightning connect with the top of her spine and everything flashes white as she falls to the floor.

"Does this," Snoke said, ignoring Kylo's screams as he drops to his knees next to her still body. "Change things." He smiles, fury flickering across his jaundiced eyes as the girls name is torn from his pets lips. Furious tears begin to swell in Kylo's eyes, and Snoke wonders about tasting them for a minute, savouring his rage entirely. He crawls toward Kylo, tenderly reaching out to cradle the man's face with a gloved hand as the Guards restrain him. "Crying won't wake her up," He says coolly, eyes flickering over the dark brown flecks of mud and blood coating the man's eyelashes. "You may beg for her life if you wish. Or my _forgiveness_."

Kylo can do nothing but hyperventilate.

Snoke inhales and raises his chin.

He wordlessly signals something to his guards, and the hands gripping Kylos arms behind his back pull his chest painfully taught. The blade snaps open and the Creature advances, swinging it loosely between his fingers.

"You have always been such a disappointment." He says with an emotionless sigh, and the blade begins to sing.

He carves below his right breastbone for what feels endless and Kylo can't help but cry out with each twist and scrape of steel. He doesn't just cut into him. It isn't enough to just leave him scarred. He recognises the shape of his brand halfway through the man's work and he begins to thrash, screaming through the shame and the red that bleeds into his vision.

He thinks he's gone mad when the elevator doors open and his Mother walks in.

He never heard his lightsaber become activated, or the cries of the resistance fighters that flooded the room. Only the crack of bone as Snokes head snaps back, his severed torso tumbling to the floor as black fluid dribbles down between his eyes. He hears the bodies dropping one by one as the rebels battle against Snokes Guards, and only realises the room is going dark as the cold floor touches his face. The last thing he sees is the traitor throwing down the crackling red lightsaber he had just used on Snoke, and running towards Rey, gently cradling her limp body and screaming for help.

 _That was supposed to be me_ he thinks, and Snokes mantra of failure suddenly floods into his chest in a wave without restraint.

"Ben!" The Princess shrieks, as her sons eyes finally roll up into his head and he collapses onto his front. Leia breaks into a stumbling run towards her fallen son.

Everything smells of sweat and dried blood.

Finn exhales, ignoring how heavy the heartbeat in his chest is for the first time. Rey and Kylo were strong, they could hold out longer than three days. They had to. And yet...

"Come on Rey wake up," He says under his breath with blind determination, gently cradling her. He tucked her head beneath his chin, and watched as their enemy was gently pulled upright by his mother and two resistance fighters. Finns eyes flickered down to the source of the glistening sheen of blood coating his chest and a sickening chill burnt across his body. Beneath the red of his darkening blood, flesh had been carved away from Kylo's body.

Finn stared in shock, and the glistening shape of the resistance symbol dug out of Kylo's skin stared back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To potentially confused 'day one' readers, the story summary has been re-written since first publishing to suit the plot direction more. I hope its an improvement.


	2. Bacta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leia had waited for fifteen years to hold her son again.  
> 

She hadn't been able to look into his eyes.

Kylo had already been unconscious by the time Leia had managed to gather him into her arms. It was this alone that made Leia realise just how many changes in him she had been robbed of seeing throughout his life. She drank in the curves and angles of his face as she cradled him, his bloodied lips, the scar that split his face in two and carried down across his torso, the smatterings of small moles and freckles that dotted his face like unnameable constellations. She saw then in that moment, that the little boy she had sent away was truly gone.

That in her hands, she held Ben Solo's face, and all of the pain and fury of Kylo Ren.

As Finn had held onto Rey and whispered desperate nothings against her forehead, Leia held Ben's head in her lap as though he was a child again, softly sliding her fingers through his long hair. The little resolve she had managed to maintain since Luke had refused her pleas for help weakened inside her, and softly she began to hum the near forgotten lullabies she would sing to Ben as a baby.

It wasn't until Ben was lifted from her arms and carried to the Falcon that she realised that for the second time in his life, he would never know that his mother would sing to him.

 

* * *

 

Rey's eyes were shut, hidden by purpling lids with long eyelashes beaded with water, her arms floating gently behind her like bone white wings. Everything below her bare chest was blurred by the milky grey void of liquid within the glass cylinder. From where Leia was sat, she almost looked as though she was frozen in some gentle fall, the Bacta holding her in a soft arch. 

Leia had been there when Rey had been first placed into the Bacta tank nearly two weeks ago. She had seen the scars the force lightning had left, the damage it had done to her slight body. The effects of the lightning would mar her skin forever. The wound had left a climbing dark red ivy that reached around her spine and fanned along her shoulder blades, the scars tips and branches so fine and twisting that they could be snowflakes.

 

“What kind of weapon creates marks like these.”

Finn words were near to a whisper, spoken so softly that Leia almost didn't hear him. She turned to look at the soldier, taking in his disheveled appearance. Finn sat quietly beside her and was looking up at the tank, dressed in Resistance grade nightwear and Poe's threadbare jacket. He looked tired. 

"The dark side," Leia said simply, a streak of disdain passing across her face. "Snoke's powers and the strength he gained from others suffering was enough for him to bring damage like this."

"I've known the cruelty of the First Order," Finn murmured, his eyes not moving away from the sight of Rey peacefully floating. "I've seen the fear they bring, and the death that follows." He looks down at his hands and exhales. "Knowing that a Force User operated even behind all of that is something else. Some part of me still can't fully accept that she's actually here, alive."

"As well as your son." Finn adds carefully after a pause, "I'm glad you have him back."

Leia chuckles tiredly, feeling all of her sixty years. "Are you, Finn?" She smiles softly as guilt fills his expression. "Hell, I've wanted nothing more than that boy back in my arms since the first day I sent him away." 

Finn watches her, not allowing his confusion to appear on his face.

"In my heart I always had this, this _want_ to chase him down across the galaxy and take him back, that one day he and I would forgive each other in turn and he'd come back home."

"Leia I know Han felt the same-"

"But now," Leia continued over him, deaf to his words. "Now that he's here with me, torn apart by the force," She turned to Finn to offer a sad smile, pushing away the memories of the consequences of her urging her husband to reach out to him. "I can't say that it feels the same as I thought it would."

"Twenty years apart is a long time, You can't expect him to be that child you lost. However much that hurts." Finn said.

Unspoken words settle in the air after that, and Finn goes back to distantly watching Rey.

"You're thinking of the Forest."

"I'm _always_ , thinking back to the Forest." Finn said bitterly.

"Then speak your mind Finn." Leia murmurs.

"I don't want to offend you."

"Finn, you have far proved yourself to a good man and a friend. Don't think I am so blind." 

"Do you know what it feels like to have a lightsaber tear through your spine?" Finn said quickly, a brief anger flashing across his face. He regrets the sharpness of his words as soon as they leave his mouth, but Leia does nothing but calmly blink.

"I have never known Ben Solo," Finn continues not unkindly. "I have never known the man you and Han remembered. I only know the killer in a mask. As a stormtrooper, you are taught that the only time you may _ever_ pray would be when you crossed paths with Kylo Ren." His breath hitches at the memory, anger seeping into his tone. "That seeing that mask may well mean you are about to take your last breath. Kylo Ren was the monster you feared in the night."

Leia remains silent.

"I didn't even know he was human until that day on Starkiller. With Han." Finn says thickly, unable to look at her. "And then, when it happened...I couldn't even say that humanity was what I saw in him."

He starts as Leias hand gently comes to rest above his.

"Kylo Ren is as dead as Ben Solo is Finn. Whoever the man that lies in this base is, he hangs in the balance of both the light and the dark. You may never forgive him, I cannot make you do so." She said with hesitation, her eyes sparkling with firm resilience. "I cannot forgive him for all of his crimes. But we must try and hold him in the same faith as we do for Rey's light."

"Leia, we don't know what happened that day between them and Snoke. How can we truly be sure of either of their intentions?"

"You doubt Rey?"

"No," Finn says stiffly. "She bears the light through and through." He hesitates. "Both times I've picked up a lightsaber, it's been knowing that there was a chance that I could die for her. Her light is what makes me brave. It makes me want to be _better_." Finn stands, looking up at Rey as she floats within the misty grey water of the Bacta tank. "That light can be a beacon for those who are lost, a reminder of what you could become. You can _feel_ it." Finn whispers and warmth floods his expression. "Her light being lost.  _That_ is what i'm afraid of." 

Finn swallows and takes a breath, the door to the medbay opening with a soft hiss as he moves to leave. His fist curls, and he stills with a firm resolve. "If your son is truly as conflicted as you say Leia, that same light will tear him apart."

Leia says nothing, watching Finns retreating back until the doors close behind him, leaving her alone with the young force user. She stands, wearily running her hands down her waist till they rest upon her hips, and sighs. She looks around at the abandoned med bay they had been able to salvage just in time for it to safely hold Rey and Ren, at the white walls and wires limply hanging from the ceiling. Half of the base was nothing but rubble following the First Orders assault, with only the rooms built deep into the hills of the planet remaining intact. Equipment was long missing, and the medical droids are gone, everything taken in the evacuation of D'Qar. 

She trusted that Poe had been right in sending them back to D'Qar. He'd suspected that in the chaos of the destruction of the Supremacy, and in Hux's sudden rise to the throne, that they would be less vigilant of several cargo ships heading towards the abandoned rebel base. That they wouldn't think of looking for them in a place they had been so desperate to abandon. The attack on D'Qar had leveked the hangers and control rooms above the surface of the planet, bt the network of tunnels that lay beneath the dirt had survived. The rooms that slept on without power, just waiting to be used again would once again hold the heart of the Resistance.

It had been bittersweet, traveling a route that contained so much death, all to bring two of the most powerful force users back to life. 

Leia thought of Holdo as she turns to look at the door adjacent to Rey's Bacta Tank, at the room that held Kylo Ren. Hold onto your _hope_  she reminds herself, forcing herself to leave the room without looking back.

She would need it.

 

 

* * *

 

Kylo Ren opens his eyes to pain. 

His head thrashes backwards out of reflex from the sting seeping into his eyes, and he squeezes his eyelids tightly shut. His movements are slowed, his limbs numb and heavy.

Kylo reaches out, taking a sharp inhale through the mask sealed over his dry mouth. His fingers mak tentative contact with cold glass and he shivers. He moves his legs languidly, carefully calculating as his toes brush against what he knows to be a familiar cylinder.

_A Bacta tank._

He grits his teeth in irritation and feels his surroundings using the force, sensing nothing. He began to realise that he was no longer on Starkiller, meaning that his Mother now kept him. He was alive and looked after, and that reality alone terrified him.

He takes another deep breath, calming himself, before gathering the force around him like a blanket of electricity. Focusing on the bindings of the support system tethering him to the inside of the tank, he begins to loosen the straps around his chest. Once they are loosened enough, he uses his numb fingers to quickly pull off the ties around his limbs. He floats freely as the wires slowly fall to the bottom of the tank, and uses his arms to push himself down until his feet too touch the base. Grounding his weight, he lowers himself into a crouch before pushing off of the floor, his palms pressing upwards until he creates movement in the opening of the seal. The lid eases away slightly, and the bacta dribbles over the side of the tank. Kylo hisses into the mask as he raises his hands above the liquid and through the opening of the lid.

The air cools the droplets of liquid clinging to his wet fingers. Testing the movements of the lid for a few minutes, he finds purchase against the walls of the tank and shoves it away completely. 

His head breaches the surface and he pulls himself over the edge of the tank, ripping the mask away from his mouth with a gasp. Kylo hisses and blinks heavily, wiping a hand across his eyes as he looks around the room. He's in a medbay, that much is clear, but the activity this room has seen seems minimal. The bay is dark, dusted in broken off pieces of rubble, and a haphazard collection of medical equipment lies scattered on a broken counter by the door. He notices with a hollow feeling in his chest, that no droid is there to wait for him to wake up.

Kylo furrows his brow and hauls himself out of the tank, cursing as his limbs fail him and he collapses onto the hard floor.

_Induced coma. Right._

Grunting, he pulls himself into a sitting position and waits until he catches his breath. He spots a pair of loose grey trousers and a black undershirt folded loosely on a counter on the far side of the room, and he drags himself over to them, wincing at the feeling of dry fabric catching onto his wet skin. Fancying his chances, he slowly eases himself onto his feet. He snarls as he stumbles, and uses the wall as a support as he inches his way towards the door that read as leading to the wider med bay. 

 

The door to the ward hisses open, and the world eases back into total silence.

Kylo tenses, stiff in his movements, bracing for unexpected company. The force, to his wariness, has remained uncomfortably silent. Releasing the breath he had been holding, he limps into the room. His eyes slowly adjust to the total darkness of it all, save for the eery neon blue glow of the bacta tank that stands opposite him. As he steps forward towards the murky tank, his body becomes bathed in the other-wordly light.

Kylo's heart stills in his chest as the figure preserved within the liquid drifts into view. A girl.

“Rey?"

 _She lived,_ a quiet voice in his head says with wonder. 

_We both lived, while Snoke rots._

 

Her palms glide up gently against the glass at that, as though she too had sensed his presence. Kylo’s breath hitches in his chest as her body suddenly jerks within her glass chamber, life slowly beginning to flood back into her body. Kylo watches as her pale limbs shift gently against the bacta, as though testing the sensation of weightlessness.

With some small effort, Rey's eyelids steadily begin to flicker open, and Kylo briefly fears whether he is now responsible for her in some way. Her eyes slowly move down to meet his and he freezes, caught in her gaze as though a young rabbit before a fox.

The sound of his heartbeat in his ears pounds as he numbly steps forward, unable to stop watching as she re-animates. Rey's peaceful floating borders on eerie he decides, as her now pale face fades in and out of visibility. The sight of her long dark hair moving in and out of grey fog as though a spectre sends chills down his spine.

Holding his breath, he slowly moves to place his hand upon the glass.

He glances up and with a start finds Rey staring down at him, unblinking, absorbing the sight of him with an expression that is unreadable.

Kylo freezes. A thousand unspoken words and memories soar between the two as their eyes meet. Her eyes are cold, colder than they've ever been through all their meetings . He parts his lips and exhales gently, pressing his hand more firmly against the glass.

"Rey."

 

**_Murderer._ **

 

Her voice in his head stuns him and his hand falls away from the tank as though burned. A torrent of bubbles suddenly soar from her mouth as she screams beneath the mask and Kylo’s mouth falls open.

"No! Rey stop-"

The sound of footsteps and panicked shouting suddenly grows closer from the corridor outside. 

_The resistance._

 

He feels sick. Taking one last look at the screaming girl, Kylo staggers back and runs.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well done Kylo that went well. Since watching TLJ and seeing how the characters have been affected post TFA, I've been struggling to work out how this alternate reality will progress to a standard i'm happy posting. Wish us luck


	3. Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey wakes up to the cold feeling of Snoke still inside her head, and her connection to the Force severely damaged. With more questions than answers, she becomes desperate to find Kylo.

_"He’s one with the-”_

_Rey stared desperately at Ben, wordlessly begging him to do something, to stand against Snoke as she had attempted. But he was too weak, his legs too numb and his fear too rich. Snokes voice trickled around her head like tar as he talked to Kylo, mocked him._

_"He is weak," the voice rumbled within her mind. "An idiot of a boy who thinks himself a legend. Without the mask he is nothing. A coward."_

_The last word rings true as Ben is pushed to the floor with a soft grunt. Rey’s heart sunk in her chest, her powers forgotten and her enemy torn apart by his master for his mistakes._

_"You would have bested him. He knows it himself." the voice says with relish. "Because of his mistakes, his selfishness, you will never realise your true potential. You will die alone and unloved, and he will have been the one to have failed you."_

_Before she can fight back, Blistering heat tears its way across the skin of her back and rips into her chest. A distant cry was the last thing she heard before her vision turned white._

 

 

* * *

 

She opened her eyes to grey mist, to the dark silhouette of a figure standing beyond a wall of glass. 

 

_Was this the caves of Achto?_

_Was she back with Luke?_

 

She began to panic, her vision still blurred. She felt weightless and cold.

Her heart pounded in her chest as a hand came to rest against the crystal barrier between the two. In that one movement, Everything she had experienced in the last year came back to haunt her. She saw the Island, the pull to the dark side, Lukes rejection of her, Snokes mottled hands gripping her face, the image of her parents rotting beneath the Jakku sands, Kylo screaming after letting Snoke take her-

 

_Kylo._

 

He stared up at her from outside the tank with a look akin to hope, his mouth moving wordlessly.

By the time she recognised the scream as her own, Kylo was gone.

 

* * *

 

 

Finn and Leia exchange a severe glance with each other.

“What do you mean, he’s left?”

Rey shivered around the blankets Finn was currently draping around her shoulders. Her friends had heard her screams from down the hall, moments later bursting into the room and quickly draining the tank to release her. Finn had pulled her into a tight hug as she took in deep lungfuls of air, crying into his shoulder. 

"I never thought I'd see you again." Finn had laughed softly, running a hand through her slick hair. He bit back the tears that threatened to fall, and held onto his friend for as long as she needed him.

In time, he had breathlessly explained the evacuation of the supremacy and how she had come to arrive back on the ruins of D'Qar. Rey's mind felt as though it was spinning, and she was briefly aware of a heavy sting across her shoulders.

Rey sat up a little straighter against the walls of the now empty tank and looked at the two pointedly.

“The tank - when I woke up Kylo was outside somehow. He was watching me.” Rey licked her lips.”I didn’t recognise him at first. When I opened my eyes I thought I was still aboard the Supremacy, that everything had got worse. That I'd been captured. I felt his confusion,” She paused, looking down at her white tipped fingers. Her body was still adjusting to the cooler temperature of the room. She nestled her fingers into the warmth of the blanket and looked up at Finn. "He ran before either of you had got close to me."

"I can't believe this." Finn said, shaking his head lightly. 

"I wish I'd held him back." Rey gritted out. "If i'd only realised-"

“Maker, Rey i'm not mad at you." Finn groaned. "You were the one  _screaming,_ I thought he'd turned on you.”

“I know what it would've looked like, but I was scared. Then I scared  _him_  away when I woke up, who knows what he'll do now. I-” She paused, gathering the blankets around herself before reducing her voice to a whisper. “I was restrained in a tank in a place I didn’t recognise. I didn’t know what to think, only that I felt so many horrible things within myself. You know what its like to come out of something like that." She said softly.

The rebel exhaled, closing his eyes and nodding gently at her words.

"I know. I'm sorry."

"He won't have gotten far." Leia said reasonably. "He recovered faster than we ever expected him to, but there isn't a chance in hell he'd make it out of this base. He'll come back and in time, he will learn that this is the best place for him right now." Leia crouches down next to Rey, so that their faces sit level. “Rey, can you tell us what happened?”

Rey sinks down in her chair and holds her head in her hands, missing the look of concern that ghosts across Finns face.

“I remember...”

“What? What happened?” Finn frowned, watching Rey begin to gently tremble. “Rey?” 

“He changed everything." Rey said slowly. "Snoke went inside my mind like a parasite, he made the force feel cold. It feels a fraction of what it did before, I can barely feel it. Even on Jakku when I didn't know what it was I felt that warmth within myself and now...its nothing more than a shadow. He tried to break down all the hope I had, and when he was done he was going to kill us both. He turned on me first and Ben just-”

“Just what?” Finn said. "Did he have something to do with this? Was he working with Snoke?"

“No." Rey snapped. She flinched at her adamancy and recoiled, swallowing her anger. "No, Kylo wasn't working with Snoke by then. Something changed in him, I could sense it. I saw the light in him, and I fear he didn’t know what to do with it.” She paused, pushing the memories of what Snoke had said about him deep down within herself. “Neither of us did. But Kylo brought me to him, even if he saw truth in what I saw in him. He brought me before Snoke to suit his own desperate ugly need for belonging, for approval. And now, we're only alive because of you.” Her voice cracks, a broken laugh slipping out. “I don’t know what happened to him after I fell unconscious, and I hate it. And now that he's  _gone_ -”

“We’ll find him.” Leia interrupts. “He won’t be far, the Bacta will have weakened him too much for him to make any ground”

For a moment, Rey remembered the scream she had heard as she had fallen unconscious before Snoke. Rey closed her eyes slowly and nodded to herself, sinking her head deeper into her hands.

"Terrible things, he's done terrible things."

Finn and Leia look at each other silently, the question of who freezing on their tongues.

Rey sniffs and raises her head. She looks gaunt, and the grey blankets gathered around her shoulders only serve to bring out the sickly green that sits beneath her skin.

"The force isn't singing like it used to, not anymore. Not like it did when I was on the island." Rey murmurs. "It's there, it's faint but...but I feel the dark too. It's a greater part of me now, more than ever." 

Finn swears under his breath.

"Leia, what if he's taken it from me...the Force? The Light? After everything with Luke-"

"The force will always be in us Rey, always. Remember that." Leia said gently, looking down at her with soft, sad eyes. "You've been through terrible things, don't allow yourself to think that Snoke still holds power over you."

"I can't not. I can still feel him as though he sits inside my skull." Rey said bluntly. She grinds her jaw and looks up at Leia bitterly. "Something has changed. If the dark is truly inside of me, it will still be in Kylo too." She sat up, easing herself to stand on her feet for the first time.

"I need to be able to look for Ben, alone." She adds, fixing Finn with a stern glance as he moves to protest. "The connection we had before, it's weakening and I'm afraid he'll break it. He has a lot to explain...and I want to hear the truth of it all from him before its too late."

Leia pauses, inclining her head towards Rey. "I know what you need to do, but this is something that can come in time. You need rest."

"No." Rey said firmly. "He's weak, and I don't have much time. If I can find Kylo, I'll find Ben again within him. I need to."

"Rey," Finn interrupted. "You're too weak to face him."

"I am only as weak as he will be, and he's managed to escape us nearly undetected." Rey said quickly. "I'll be able to find him the fastest and bring him back. He won't stay away if he knows that...I don't hate him, after all of this...He'll learn to stay near."

 

_I don't hate him?_

 

Leia and Finn look down at her with concern, the two standing in silence. Rey's mind whirled with mad desperation, an excitement brewing within her chest at the challenge. Kylo would be Ben again, he would. Then things would be better. 

 

"Please?" She said, her eyes wide and full of light.

 

Leia lets out a long sigh.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very short chapter this time round. Tumblr -  
> Jediyungling  
> Edit : This chapter has been added to since initial posting as I wasn't happy with it at all. Chapter updates will take longer but be less rushed from here.


	4. Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their bond is silent, and Kylo Ren remains missing. As Rey becomes steadily more lost in the dark side, her emotions lead her to behave recklessly. Blinded by his protectiveness of her, Finn goes against her and Leia's wishes and goes to find Kylo for answers himself.

 

Rey looked at herself in the mirror with tired disinterest. Her wet hair siting tucked tightly behind her ears, hanging limply above her still bruised collar bones.

With this approaching midnight, Kylo Ren will have been missing for five days.

She had searched for him, at first. But the longer she wandered the base and the surrounding forests, each call of his name had begun to sting in her mind like an open wound.

On the third day of nothing but silence where their bond once was, she had stormed blindly around the base for what could have been hours, hurt and anger bubbling inside her chest until her feet led her to her unknown destination. The bond was breaking by the hour, and Ben was doing nothing to stop it. The sound of enraged screaming had bought her back to her senses. As her mind steadily began to defog, her seething anger retreating from her limbs, she found herself standing in a fighting stance inside the med bay, her lightsaber humming softly within her palm. She was standing amongst a river of shattered glass, lightsaber burn marks smoldering across the walls, bacta coating her feet and flecking her skin. She was screaming, screaming until Finns arms had wrapped tightly around her waist and soothed her back into sanity.

Rey sighs, pulling away from the memory.

She takes a long final look at herself in the mirror, her lips twitching at how cold her eyes had began to become. She could feel it now, the anger and the passion Kylo had felt as he existed within the First Order. His absence had left her with his rage, and the more the light stirred in her, the greater she tasted his conflict. She would wake sometimes in the night and see Luke standing above her for nothing but a second. He left behind a fear that wasn't her own, and it ate away at her sanity.

She reminds herself dutifully, that she must stand with the light, despite her new found sense of disdain for it all. The light had given her everything, her escape from slavery, a sense of power, the ability to create change. But the balance of the dark and light now moved inside of her like a constant eclipse. With each decision she makes that is right, the temptation of endless "what ifs'" linger in her thoughts. She knew now that this is Snokes doing, fed in part by Luke's neglect. Kylo would understand, yet he hides from her. Maybe he's hiding from them too.

She dresses quickly, shrugging on a tunic of black cloth. She winds her sun bleached arm wraps around her forearms and a warmth grows in her chest at their reassuring familiarity. With the loss of her three buns and staff, the simple wrappings helped remind her of what she had come from.

The morning light bleeds through the damaged ceilings of the base as she begins her daily routine of preserving isolation, the sun casting crisp white dashes against the walls of the corridors she wanders. There are no droids to be heard, no bustle of life. Something inside of her still is still coiled, ready for battle at the sound of an alarm that will never come.

 

* * *

 

 

Finn leaned against the exit of the base, watching the world around him with tired eyes.

His gaze drifted across the hills that encircle their makeshift sanctuary. A morning frost shifted along the ground, leaving a wet mist upon the grass. Even in the winter months, D'qar was lush with rich greens and dense forests. Heavy rains would often fall in the early hours of the morning, near overflowing the rivers that cut away at the mountain sides. This morning was no different, the air rich with the smell of the recent rainfall. The frost that followed, cooled the air, stinging at his finger tips ever so.

Rey would venture out into the countryside each morning since she had awoken, and he would wait for her. 

She sits cross legged ahead of him on the damp grass, her hands gently pressed onto her knees. He often wondered if she knew that the winter flowers would turn their heads in her direction when she came out here to peacefully meditate, that the wind would change direction so as to not chill onto her face. The force flowed around her, and he hoped she was beginning to find some small joy in it.

_I can hear you thinking._

Finn sighs and walks towards his friend. She doesn't move as his approaches, but her lips twitch upwards into a small smile as he sits next to her.

"I see your powers are returning." He says warmly, briefly tapping a finger to his head. He watches her as she exhales, his brow furrowing as she makes no returning gesture of comfort at his presence.

"You just think very loudly Finn."

"Well I wish you would talk to me more." Finn says not unkindly, leaning back onto his forearms. The grass is damp beneath his fingers, dew sifting between them.

Reys mouth tightens.

"I haven't felt like talking lately."

"And that would be fine, that would be understandable." Finn says slowly, looking out onto the rolling hills ahead of them. He senses Rey fighting the instinct to tense up defensively. "But you've not been healing."

"How so." She says, her words not questioning.

"Your hair."

Rey chewed her lip. She had cut it herself in a fit of madness the day after she had come out of the Bacta Tank. Finn had watched her silently from her bed as she hummed to herself, offering a sad smile as she finished her work.

"First your hair, then wandering the base at all hours of the night hunting for him. It's not right, its not healthy. And then the med lab-" Finn said.

"You think on it more than I do."

"I'd be a liar if I said otherwise." Finn says quietly. "I think doing this," He gestures to the world around them, "everyday has been the best thing you've done for yourself since you woke up."

Rey's eyes remained closed and she began to hum to herself quietly. Finn sighed at her stubbornness.

D'Qar was silent around them, but for the gentle morning chorus of birds he had yet to see for himself. There was an overwhelming sense, he found, of complete peace here. That despite the destruction the First Order had wrought onto their previous home, it still felt as though amidst the emptiness of it all, it was theirs. No wonder Rey liked it out here.

"I need to find him Finn." Rey says suddenly.

Finn turns to look at her and finds her eyes open, blinking weakly against the rising sun. "Still?"

"He's avoiding me. 

"Rey, What do you think you'll gain from finding him?"

Words stick in Rey's throat, and the urge to tell Finn the truth writhes inside of her. To admit that since their Force Bond began on Achto, she'd felt something like home in Ben. To find someone she saw genuine understanding in -  _the man meant to be her enemy of all people -_ only to have that sense of belonging torn out of her very soul...the pain was growing steadily unbearable. Each day without his presence distantly resting inside of her felt like a cold ache.

"I need him." Rey swallows, ignoring Finns flinch. "I hate that I do but now that Skywalker's abandoned us, I need to rebuild. Ben belongs to nothing anymore, and I need a teacher. If he's here, he'll feel lost. Teaching me could give us both purpose."

"If he's out here Rey, and thats a big if-" 

"The bond hurts Finn."

Finn pauses, looking back at Rey. Her words were harsh and sudden, and for a moment Rey looks as though she doesn't recognise them as coming from her own mouth.

"It's still there, I didn't realise it before, but it hurts. He's ignored me ever since he ran, I can't feel him, speak to him. Theres nothing but a wall where he once was. I thought we shared the bond, I hated him for having it at first but its a part of me thats been torn away. I feel more anger by the day and if I don't find him soon, I don't know how much longer I'll be able to handle it." 

"Rey, I don't know that you are handling it." Finn said quietly.

Rey swallowed, something alike to shame flushing across her features at Finns words. Wordlessly, she turned away from him and stiffly resumed her meditation. Finns gut twisted nervously. He had always trusted his instincts, taking heed to its warnings of when to run, when to fight. It had been what had guided him to every good thing in his life since running away from the First Order. He listened to the overwhelming sense of discomfort rising in his chest at Rey's helplessness, and to every fibre of his body telling him to walk away. He groaned aloud, and turned back to the base, his decision made firmly in his mind.

His instinct was panicking.

 

 

* * *

 

After searching for the best part of two hours, He really hadn't expected to find him that quickly.

"Hey!" Finn shouts, spotting a moving mass crouched behind a control panel in the empty hanger.

Kylo looked up, tensing as he approaches. Finn hesitated at the sight of his enemy. The man looked ill, the lack of sunlight he'd seen had turned his skin paler than usual. His dark hair was matted and his scar had begun to fade into a shiny looking bolt across his cheek. 

"What are you doing down here? The others have been worried-"

"I needed a ship." Kylo said hollowly.

“You _need_ to stop avoiding us.” Finn hissed, reaching forward to grip Kylo’s arm. “Rey's in trouble, the bonds hurting her. She’ll break completely if you take off.”

“Is that why you care?” The older of the two replied, shrugging him off and taking a step back. “Afraid of watching her have her heart broken?”

“What? You know its more than that." Finn said, looking up at him with disgust.

_We should have left you to die._

“Interesting.” Kylo murmers, drawing out his thoughts with ease. “I almost wish you had, I might have had peace.”

“You've realised then? That the only sanctuary you currently have is with three people who should all hate you? The First order doesn't want you, the Resistance would have you put to death, you have-” Finn paused. “No friends, or family, no-one at all to run to...”

Kylo watched him pace, his eyes narrowing into black slits. He sensed the growing conflict in the air, some harsh misery that was yet to come.

“But then, you have Rey. Don't you? You let her nearly kill you just so you could stop her leaving Starkiller any sooner.” Finn said coldly, not taking his eyes off of Kylo. “Do you even remember the forest?" 

“I dare say you do.” Kylo said with a hardened tone, his features faltering all too clearly. He pushes the memory of his first force bond with Rey down into his chest, of her eyes meeting his, of the snow falling around them. No one but him would ever know just how many times he had replayed that memory.

“That night protects me. Knowing what you’ve done to us, what you’re capable of." Finn continue, his eyes glinting. "I don’t buy into your redemption, Ren. I don’t believe you don’t want this bond either. I've heard her nightmares and I know you have too. You've heard all her thoughts and hopes, the dreams of her parents.”

“You know I couldn’t control that.” Kylo says too quietly, as though for a moment even he thought himself worth condemning.

“Liar.” Finn seethed. “You went into her mind on Starkiller, you killed Han Solo, you unleashed her powers full knowing Luke would reject her. You knew everything about her past and you only told her when saw that you had something to gain.” He advances as Kylo falters, a flash of something akin to vulnerability darting across his face.

“She _cares_ for you, even after everything you've done, and you're stupid enough to try and destroy the bond when you need it most?" Finn snarls, the memories of Rey's empty smiles burnt firmly into his mind. "How much did you listen to before you decided it was too much? How much did you pretend not to hear so you could comfort her when she only had you to turn to? Until she felt as alone as you-”

“All of it.” 

Finn roared, lunging towards the force user. Kylo grunted as Finn collided with him, his fingers digging into the open wound on his side and pulling. Kylo curled into himself, howling, and Finn knows his hands have made purchase. Finn slams forward again as the wound in Kylo's side re-opens, and the two surge towards the wall of the hanger. Kylo punches blindly into Finns side as they stumble backwards, catching him beneath his ribs and winding him. Finns grip loosens and with a snarl Kylo grabs the traitor by the arm and pushes him away from him.

“I never left her!” Kylo grunts through gritted teeth. He presses a bloodied palm over his side and stumbles forwards. “I had no choice in when I'd appear to her, or what I heard. Snoke controlled everything about the bond-”

“Bullshit! You’re weaker than you let on, you're addicted to her. You ruined her light with your own failures and you can’t face her, you can’t face any of us for what you’ve done.” Finn spits, wiping his sleeve across his bleeding lip and stumbling to his feet. “It’s pathetic. You’re pathetic.”

Finn lunges forward again and narrowly avoids Kylo as he swerves to the side, sending the force user stumbling backwards. The two tear apart from each other and Kylo seethes, watching Finn as he begins to limp towards him.

“You don’t know what it’s like.” 

“No?” Finn laughed.

“No. Not that I owe you answers, I don’t owe you who I really am.”

“Yeah? Well when you work out who you are besides a failure let me know-”

Kylo’s fist collided with Finns jaw with a sickening crack.

 

 

_Finn._

Leia looked up from her holopad with a start, a chill running down her spine. 

 _"_ Dameron, I'm going to have to call you back on this one. We've got trouble here." 

"Trouble? What do you mean trouble?"

"All kinds," Leia replied gruffly, "I'll call you back when this gets sorted."

The flickering image of Poe exhales through its nose, shaking its head stiffly. "Force be with you then"

"And you." She said quickly, ending the transmission. 

She cursed under her breath and ran from the room, making her way through the rubble-covered halls of the base. She followed Finn's force signature until the cracked stone walls of the tunnels led her to an opening. She walked through an abandoned hanger strewn with old equipment and wire, until the sound of pained grunting led her to a communications room, long abandoned. 

"What the hell happened." Leia said angrily, looking at the scene in front of her.

Kylo stood on the far side of the ruins of the room, leaning against the broken face of a monitor and nursing his knuckles. Two of them were rubbed red and his hands were bloodied. He looked over at his Mother with a pinched smile. "He started it." 

"Sorry," Finn said weakly from where he sat by Leias feet. He looked over Kylo with a fixed glare. "Couldn't resist." 

Kylo's lip curled.

"For Maker's sake we can't be doing things like this." Leia growled, a sharp edge to her voice. "We already have next to nothing here, we can't turn on each other. We need stability-"

Kylo bites out a laugh. "We?" 

Leia's gaze snapped over to her son, and their eyes meet.

"Don't."

Kylo stills and the smile drops from his face, his fingers digging into the material of his shirt. Leia offers no reaction to the sight of dark blood beginning to spot through the fabric sticking to where his wound lies. She watches him until his eyes flicker down to the floor, and with an air of apprehensiveness takes a step towards him. Silently, she gestures for Finn to leave. Finn stiffens for a moment before crawling to his feet and quietly ducking out of the room. Leia waits for his footsteps to fall silent before opening her mouth.

"You don't have enemies here." she said quietly. "You may not feel like you have a home with us, but you do." She pauses, glancing down at his side. "You don't have to run anymore, feel like you have to be more than you are. Especially to Rey."

Kylo's head whips up, hurt shining like glass in his dark eyes.

"Please don't fight us."

"You dont...Don't try to understand." He grits out. "No one understands."

"Then tell me." Leia pleads. "That's all I have ever wanted."

"It...tears...you....apart. The dark, the light, its ripped me in two and it'll do the same to her." Kylo shouts, pointing at a figure that isn't there."That _bastards_  just got a taste of what all your friends are desperate to do to me themselves. There are no sides to this madness, everyone has blood on their hands. I gave everything to Snoke after _your_ brother turned on me, and now you ask me to belong? Belong to nothing more than the option least likely to put me to death?" He laughs, the sound is empty and without emotion. "Never. Never again." 

"I won't leave you Ben."

"Maybe you should, theres nothing for you here." Kylo says quickly, fixing her with a cruel look. "Anything that tied me to you, to the light, to Snoke - is gone. All of it. I owe you nothing, none of you." He hisses.

Leia closes her eyes and exhales. She can feel Kylo Ren rearing his head, and Ben silently settling down back into his chest. 

 _You are still my son._ She thinks. Kylo swats the thought away and pain reels in her heart.

 _We're related._ He replies thickly. For a moment, he searches his mothers face hungrily, as though feeding off of the conflict in her. She has become old, he suddenly realises with a sinking feeling. Her skin has paled with time, with cracks fanning like twigs around her brow and eyes. The resemblance to his uncle was unmistakable. He swallows, eyes flickering away from her face as the feeling in his chest tightens like ice. 

"Go back to the Resistance." He says slowly, guilt beginning to rise in his stomach. He moves to walk away from his silent mother. "You'll find your heroes in them."

"Ben wait-" Leia began to beg, turning to face him.

Leia stood alone.

 

 

 

* * *

 

The med bay was freezing.

Liquid from the emptied bacta tanks still covered the floors in footprints that were yet to be absorbed by the earth. Finn sat silently on a surviving operating table, sulkily looking at the far wall. Leia had returned from the depths of the base to find him trying to unsuccessfully attempting to self-medicate. She'd watched him for a while. Finn would curse under his breath as he shook empty pill pots in increasing frustration. Leia coughed to notify him of her presence, meeting his startled face with a small smile as he turned to face her. In an uncomfortable silence, she had begun to repair his wounds.

"You make a shit job of self care, kid." Leia said, grimacing as Finn winces against the bacta she cleans his face with.

"Not got a lot to work with around here." Finn grunts. Leia smiles thinly and inspects the smatterings of bruises beginning to form around Finn's bare midriff.

“What did you say to Ben to start all this?” Leia said suddenly, sitting up slightly to dab a moist cotton pad to Finns split lip.

  
“He doesn’t deserve you.” Finn replied.

“That," Leia says tightly. "Isn’t your call to make.”

“Some Son - He defended you down there did he?” Finn turns his head sharply, fixing Leia with a firm glare. “Has Ren ever come to thank us for saving him?”

"You know damn well he won't do that."

"So why are we trying?" 

"You've changed your tone."

"His motivations are grey and he punched me in the jaw. He has nothing to offer us." Finn said bluntly. "I won't apologise for the truth."

Leia removed the cotton pad from Finns mouth and settled back into her chair with a sigh. 

“Tonight was a wake up call for me Finn. I'm needed back with the Rebels.”

“What?” He said quickly, wincing as his wound stretched around his words. “You’re leaving?”

“You've said it yourself, and so has Ben. Theres nothing for me here." Leia said, her eyes crinkling above a sad smile. "The war is about to begin and I _chose_ to be here. Not at the head of a fleet. But have no task here, I have to go where I do." 

“Leia, I only meant to hurt _him_.”

“But you still meant what you said.” Leia said sternly. “Ben loves me in his own way, he couldn’t turn on me like he did Han. It shouldn’t be something I can hold him to any light by, but it is. It's all I have.” She turns her gaze to the window, at the host of stars that hung across the night sky.

“My presence here only makes him feel trapped. I must carry a lot of ghosts for him.” She said dryly.

“But Rey-”

“Will not be alone.” Leia said firmly. “She won't be alone, not really. But she's conflicted. She needs time to herself, to decide her path.”

“Leia, you don’t have to do this. Rey needs us.”

“But I do, and she doesn't." Leia pauses. "And you’re coming with me Finn.”

Finn was silent for a few moments.

“No.”

“Yes." Leia smiled thinly, resting her hands on her lap. "The Resistance needs us more than they do.”

“Leia, I can’t leave her with him. I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s Kylo Ren?" Finn replied incredulously, as though he was the only one speaking basic. "They'll kill each other if we leave them alone.”

"They'll kill each other? Or you and he will attempt to until I have to have this conversation a second time." Leia said, tilting her head and raising her eyebrows. She shakes her head softly at Finns glower. "Trust in Rey's light Finn."

"I'm her friend. She needs me." Finn replies softly, shrinking under Leias gaze. He chews his lip nervously, thinking to himself for a moment. "I'm not okay with this Leia."

"Right now Finn, You just need to trust me." Leia sighed. "Poe will be sending a ship down to collect us at dawn. The Resistance is advancing on Hux amid negotiations, now would be a good time for you and him to re-unite." 

"But how will I tell Rey?"

Leia stood, looking down at Finn empathetically, taking his hands in hers.

"Rey is stronger than you think she is Finn, and you already think a great deal of her." She smiled softly. "Were going into a great unknown, in this war. I need you with me at the front of it all." 

"I promise you, they will be alright."

 

 

* * *

 

"Do you believe me?"

"Do I believe that Leia is doing this for the best?" Rey said, hesitating. "Yes. I do."

They sit beside each other, in front of the vast horizon of the valley before them. The sun is setting, and a cool air rifles through the long grass at their feet.

"I don't want you to be alone."

"I was alone for a very long time, Finn."

"I don't want you to be alone again then."

Rey exhales slowly. "Theres a strange difference to be found, in being alone, and in feeling alone." 

Finn turns to look at her.

"I haven't felt alone since I met you, not since any of this has begun. I will feel just as loved when you and Leia are back with Poe." Rey opens her eyes and looks at Finn with a gentle determination. "I have no master, and now I have no enemy. I need to find myself Finn."

The rebel closes his eyes, his jacket moving softly in the evening breeze. 

"I just...If you're to stay here with Ren. I need you to not forget who you already are."

"Wait-" Rey said quickly, leaning forwards. "He's alive?"

"Rey-"

"How can you know? How can you possibly-"

"Because I found him himself." Finn says, numbly rubbing a hand across his now healed jaw.

"Finn." Rey exhales, disbelief sweeping across her features. "Why?"

"You weren't alright Rey, I could see the darkness in you. I had to do something."

Rey pauses, sitting up into a kneeling position. 

"Is he okay?" The softness of her words convey the unspoken  _thank you for caring_ that she holds in her chest for him.

"He's sick. You can see it in him." Finn says shortly, absentmindedly pulling blades of grass out of the ground and picking them apart. "Whatever Snoke did to him is still having an effect, the same as you." He pauses. "Despite everything you and Leia have said, I can't trust him. I don't think I ever will."

"Oh Finn."

"No." Finn says sharply, turning to Rey and holding her face in his hands. "Can't you see? What he's done? The dark has gone into you after one audience with Snoke, do you really think Kylo will be so easy to be saved?" 

Rey blinked. Slowly, she brought her hands up to her cheeks and lowered Finns hands down into her lap. 

"I have to try." 

Finn looked at her closely, judging the gentle resolve in her eyes. 

"Why do you have to see the good in everyone."

Rey laughed softly. "Kylo Ren is _not_ a good man. Ben, however-" She looks down at the ground and exhales. "I've seen the light that waits for him. I can't turn away from that."

"Do you trust him?"

Finn sighed at her silence.

"He's made himself a camp in one of the rooms in the West Wing of the base, the cameras in that part of the underground were still operational. You'll find him there." He hesitates, tongue darting out to lick his lower lips nervously.

"Rey, Do you trust him?"

Rey blinked up at Finn, her lips parting in small surprise. She seems entirely deaf to his most recent words.

"Thank you."

Finn sighed tiredly into Rey's hair as she pulled him into a tight hug. A mantra of b _e careful, come with me, be careful_ , bubbled inside his chest. Finn instead chose to remain silent, holding Rey in the fading evening light as she whispered i'll miss you's, over and over again into his chest.

He would have to take her lack of an answer with as much faith as he could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The war is on its way kids, Time for the Resistance (and Rey) to get to work. Goodbye to Finn and Leia for now, Finns been my favourite to write and i'll miss him. Writing this chapter was LONG and out of schedule but i'm so here for the plot and reylo thats to come.


	5. Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having returned to the fleet, General Leia's absense on D'Qar has not gone unnoticed by those left behind. Rey is re-united with Kylo, only to find that her dying desperation to find him has uncovered deeper emotions within them both.

 

The storm had rolled in overnight.

The hills surrounding the base were painted black by the heavy clouds that covered the dark morning sky, an icy rain creating a thick sheen near impossible to see through. Small rivers had begun to break through the mountain ridges, casting cold iridescent veins across the valley.

Kylo looked out into the downpour with shuddering breaths, drawing the cloak he had stolen from an abandoned bunk tightly around himself. The silence of the cave he had retreated to shielded him from the world.

He'd counted four moons since he'd ran from his mother, the hurt that grew from the lies he'd spat in her face had spread across his body like a cancer. Hunger tore at his stomach, and the force had grown silent. Slipping in and out of fever dreams had weakened his mind as he lay on the floor of the cave, his mind turning with warped memories of all the fights he’d been forced to listen to through the thin walls of his childhood home, the lonely nights on Achto that had filled him with hatred. How even after thirty years of trying to control the balance that battled in his mind, the very mention of each of his masters names still elicited a fresh burst of anger and pain across his entire being. The conflict between loved and loveless had beaten around his heart until finally, it reached tipping point.

Now Snoke was dead. His father was dead, and he'd finally killed the love his mother had been holding on to. Instead of finding the strength he thought he had built for himself, his will was sinking into a pit of something terrible.

He remembered Snokes first test well. The feeling of dread that had swelled in his stomach as he looked up at the creatures decaying face was burnt into his mind forever. His master watching with a reserved calm as Ben had repeatedly beat his bloodied fist into another boys teeth. Hux had writhed until Snoke was satisfied, until he was bored of listening to the hitching breath coming from the now bloody lips of the boy beneath Ben, and Bens own sharp noises as the adrenaline of what he had done slowly trickled into a nauseating shock. Han Solo's son had died that day, Kylo had made sure of that. Skywalkers academy had turned to ash only days before at his hands, and the soon to be General was now reduced to a bloody mess as a testament to his rage. All because of the failings of those who has loved him.

And now as he sat inside a cave waiting to die, Snokes voice silenced within his mind for the first time in years, the power he had been promised had never seemed such an obviously false concept.

A shudder rippled across his body, the harsh tremors drawing pain from wounds that still refused to heal. This is how it would end then, he decided, fading out from the world with no legacy, regret and disease consuming his body and mind whole. How proud his Uncle must be.

From the corner of his eye, the light at the opening of the cave suddenly dimmed, a shadow flickering across the walls before vanishing. Kylo's head snapped upwards to follow the shape, catching a bare glimpse of grey fabric passing across the mouth of his grave. His mind span, his mouth falling open as he staggered to his feet, wincing at the ringing noise of blood rushing to his head at the sudden movement.

He ran out into the storm, his head whipping round into the face of the downpour.

"Rey-" He choked out, a desperate hope flooding his voice.

There had been a figure, and it stilled. 

Kylo froze as it turned towards him, his heart threatening to explode.

"You-"

It was her.

Rey's eyes flickered up and down his sickly appearance, a plethora of emotions threading through her dark eyes. Her skin was no longer the deathly pale it had been within the bacta tank, her nose and cheeks tinged a ruddy pink from the harsh cold. A thick, grey cloak far too short for her was wrapped around her hair and shoulders, sheltering her torso from the storm. In her defensive stance, dressed all in black, she looked every part the warrior.

"You're okay." Kylo exhaled, his eyes roaming her face hungrily. "I saw their ship leave, I thought-"

Rey released a harsh laugh into the wind. "You thought?" 

"I-"

" _Don't_ talk to me." Rey hissed, turning and continuing on her journey across the rocky plane. Kylo blinked in suprise before snarling angrily, gripping his hood and exposing his face to the storm. Gritting his teeth against the pounding in his head, he began to follow her.

"When better than now?" Kylo shouted at her back as the scavenger continued storming across the icy ground. "When else have we got," He said, numbly avoiding the patches of crumbling rock beneath his feet. "If not now?"

"You're very keen all of a sudden." Rey barked over her shoulder, wincing as the wind swept her hair icily against her face. 

"I thought you'd gone. I thought they'd taken you with them, that I was alone and left here to _die-_ "

"How strange. After two weeks of thinking I was alone here, so had I."

Kylo groans, ignoring the increasing chill seeping across his bones. He shakes his head and swallows his anger, gathering his remaining strength deep within himself and finding calm.

"Rey," He begins firmly, hoping he doesn't look as pathetic as he feels. "You still need a teacher. I can-"

His words suddenly hitch in his throat as all the air in his lungs leaves his body. He chokes as his form leaves the ground, unable to inhale the breath needed to cry out. His hands itch, desperate to go to his throat and he looks down to find the scavengers hand extended far in front of her. Rey's eyes are dark, her hair wild. 

"I am exhausted." She whispers with anger, taking a step towards him against the force of the storm. She ignores the choked gasps escaping his throat as his long legs limply kick out, his boots scraping against the rocks on the ground. She pauses for a moment, allowing the hurt and anger brewing in her chest to flow out across her veins like fire. Her eyes search his face and drink in the growing redness in his hollow cheeks as he gasps.

"I looked for you for days." She grits out. "You tore yourself away from me, abandoned me. After Snoke, after everything. I pitied you after you ran, thought Leia might have changed your mind. But you never came _back_ ," She suddenly screamed. "You chose weakness, just like the rest of them - and now you want to be my master?" Kylo turned from her furious gaze, squeezing his eyes shut against the growing pressure in his throat. "You must be mad."

Kylo's knees gave out as he fell to the ground and he groaned at the impact, taking a deep shaking breath. He looks up at her, his soaked hair falling across his pale rain streaked face.

"Why should I forgive you?" Rey said quietly, standing above him. In the fury of the storm, holding her lightsaber alongside her toned body, she is a vision.

"When did you learn that?" Kylo whispers, holding himself up with trembling arms.

"Excuse me?"

"When." 

"What does that have to do with anything?" Rey roared, her lightsaber flying into her palm.

"Everything." Kylo cried quickly, a dark wonder flickering across his face as the weapon is activated. "The only person you could've learnt that from is me."

 

In that moment, the world is silent. The pounding in Kylo's ears drowning out the sound of the storm that threatens to consume them. The girl watches him cautiously, her hands moving to grip the barely completed weapon tightly. Kylo's eyes flicker down to it and a glimmer of warmth glows in his chest at the sight of her weapon. The stem of her quarter staff had been severed and carved open, a blue crystal embedded in its heart. It's imperfect, yet personal. Like his was. He looks up at her and finds her watching him curiously.

 

"Luke showed me." Rey breathed, her fear filled eyes fixed on his. Her face is illuminated through the rain by the icy blue glow of her broken saber, and Kylo holds his breath at the sight of it flickering as his once had. 

"No," Kylo replied quietly, staggering to his feet with a wince. "He wouldn't dare." With a shaking hand he goes to move his hair out of his face, the corners of his lips twitching when Rey flinches at the movement. "I see it now, the change in you. What they were scared of. You've studied it haven't you? The forms I use."

"Nothing has changed." Rey said sharply, beginning to pace before him.  
  
"Then why was your friend so desperate for me to find you?" Kylo said breathlessly, his eyes wild. He acts to move towards her but stumbles, his leg giving out beneath him. Rey steps back as he cries out, regarding the man with uncertainty. He must have injured himself on the rocks. Still sore from the fall, and whatever else he had yet to heal from. She battled the urge to help him, clinging to the want for him to  _hurt_.

The rain beads along the ridges of his scar as he closes his eyes, leaning into the pain. Rey watches him struggle, ignoring the growing tremors in her hands. She knew he had been through worse, but her heart couldn't help but wonder if he had deserved it then. Not like he does now-

"You can learn from someone who understands pain." Kylo continued quietly, as though he'd heard her. The sight of her pity repulsed him, yet the emotion locked away inside of him screamed for something else, Something alien to him. He hadn't felt warmth for years, and it was something she knew well. Something she could bring out in him. “You know not to run from that part of you, the call to the dark side. Not like Skywalker.”

“He’s already shown me his guilt Kylo, you need not try turn me against him more.”

“He refused you.”

“He wronged us both. But I can understand why, thats my luxury to keep." Rey whispered, watching with wide eyes as Kylo leans down to push pressure onto his leg, grunting softly through gritted teeth. "But I can't go on like this." He looks up at her then with dark eyes, his lip curling with some twisted emotion. "Not like you, you've known it for too long. The battle between the dark and the light. You're a Skywalker Kylo, your heart can't deny it any longer. You can't fight this forever, but I can."

"Then let me help you."

Rey froze, The sound of her heart pounding in her chest was deafening. Her eyes flicker down to find Kylo's bruised hand extended out towards her. Her stomach turns, the sight drawing out memories of his marred skin pressing against hers on Achto.

“What are you doing.”  The words escaped her lips before she recognised them as her own, The harsh second of silence that falls between them threatening to shatter the small resolve that she had been clinging to.

"You need me.” Kylo swallowed thickly, keeping his hand still.

Rey says nothing, her heart pounding in her throat.

“We can help each other."

Kylo's dark eyes widen at the sudden surge of confidence that betrayed him, and he feels his hands shaking as Rey falters. There was something different in the way she looked at him then. The fury and the hurt in her still sparked but there was something else. Something threatening to break. Kylo lets his hand fall back to his side and his legs give out, pulling him down to the ground. Rey watches him swallowing her rejection, burying his head in his hands. He looks wretched.

 

Rey clips her lightsaber back into its holster on her hip and looks down at him. With a sigh, she closes her eyes, reaching up to gently rub her cold hands over her closed lids. The sensation is sharp, but the distant comfort of it eases some small clarity back into her mind. 

"I feel anger like you do. Sometimes. All that hurt you've seen...I understand it, the way it digs into your mind, turns you blind to the light. The always wanting to be more..." She trails off thoughtfully, her eyes fixed on his bowed head. "Maybe I've taken it from you, all that rage”

Rey takes a breath and moves to stand next to him, her cloak billowing in the wind.

"Where do you feel the pain?"

Kylo gave a broken laugh into the flesh of his crossed arms, the sound muffled by his torn shirt sleeves. "Where don't I?" 

A sudden pressure on his shoulder has Kylo flinching, until he finds the palm gently placed onto him moving in comforting circles. With a trembling breath, he looks up at the woman crouched beside him, and dares to let his eyes flicker across her soaked skin. White sunlight was beginning to speckle her body from between the cracks in the black clouds gathered above them. His dry lips parted at the sight of it.

"I don't feel a belonging to either side of the force,” Rey continued, relaxing her legs and slumping back to sit down on the wet rocks beneath them. She winced at the sensation of it, grateful that the rain has now ceased to fall, bracing against the cold as she turns back to Kylo. “The balance within me is...lost, confused. The pull towards one comes in waves, and when it strikes true I can't control it. Snoke did what Luke couldn't do, he's made me feel one with everything-"

"But you don't want it." 

Rey shakes her head at his words and stills. The conflict in her emanates around her like a chaotic shield, he can sense it now. He reaches out with the force gently, gently enough that she would be unable to feel it. An energy within her burns, and he recoils back into himself. 

"I can help you." Kylo says softly. 

"Can you?" Rey raises her eyebrows. "You want an equal in all this, but I don't want to be taught. I don't want to _become_ anything. I want peace." 

Kylo laughed without humour. "You're a bomb. You can't go on like this, being torn apart by it all. Skywalker showed you the balance of the force then cast you out with no understanding of it, Snoke's only made your feelings more powerful. "

"Even now Snokes intentions delude you." Rey said softly, her expression flooded with a sad form of wonder. Kylos blood ran cold.

"I'm not dangerous." Rey continued, briefly pausing as her treacherous mind drags forward memories of her lightsaber burning across his skin. "Less so than you think I might be. This isn't what I am, not really."

"How can you tell." Kylo said quietly. 

Rey hesitated. 

"Because I knew anger, and I knew power even before I found the force within myself." She murmured. "I remember the small child wandering the desert alone, and I embrace her. You were born with a burden of fate, as though the galaxy was watching you with baited breath. I was no one, I had no purpose but to survive. And I still fought for years to protect that."

"I know it must be hard for you,” She continued quietly, taking in Kylo's torn expression. “But you didn't have to believe that you were meant to die here."

Kylo paused, releasing a shaking breath as he considered her words.  
  
"I know what power like this does, what happens when you let it consume you. All the things that are drawn to you because of it...” He said, a deep pain breaking into his voice. Turning to her, he searched her face, looking for a glimmer of recognition. Rey's eyes didn't move to meet his. Instead, she looked on into the rain soaked expanse of the valley, the tips of her fingers absently skimming against the clear mountain rivers trickling down alongside them. “You can't let it control you Rey, you survived because you were meant for more." 

She looked up at the use of her name, her lips twitching upwards into a small, sad smile.

"So where do we go from here."

"You need to do what I never could." He replied, his voice threatening to break. "You need to let the past die."  
  
With a sharp inhale, Rey's lip began to tremble.

The scars dashed across the blades of her shoulders had begun to prickle. In that moment, She remembered Snokes twisted expression. The blood dusting the throne room floor. Her heart clenched at the echoes of pain that had rushed through her mind, at the memory of Kylo's voice crying out in desperation as the world went dark. Snoke had poisoned their bond from the start, she knew this now. He'd made sure to ruin them both. If they couldn't protect each other then, then how could they now? Now that they existed without direction. 

 

"You broke off our bond Kylo. Something we'd learnt to embrace, and I can't forgive you for that." Rey said softly. "I trusted you, I trusted the idea that it was ours, something only we could understand. Before Snoke, we'd both thought we'd seen our futures, but they didn't contain were we stand now." She looked down at her hands as Kylo's jaw tightened at her words. "But you're right, The past must die, we'll kill it if we have to. I won't be your student, and I won't let you be shadowed by the man you thought you could be. The balance lies in both of us, waiting to be found and if we are to move on, we'll do it together."

She looked up and met Kylos stare, her gaze softening at the sight of his eyes growing wet. Blinking to swallow her own upset, she turns her head, pretending to not notice. With an exhale she stands, closing her eyes against the cool sensation of the air after the rain has settled. The smell of the distant forests fills her lungs, and a glimmer of some fresh new hope spreads across her body.

"I think I've had enough of the world for today." She says quietly, turning to the man sat at her feet. He turns his gaze away from the planes of the planet to meet her eyes, his face drained from the cold. 

“What do I do now.” He whispered into his palm. “I've nothing to go back to, not like you."

"I think for now," Rey says, allowing a brave hint of a smile to play on her features. "I think for now we head inside, and decide who we want to be tomorrow."

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look who finally updated. My hits/kudos ratio is very skewed, so any comments would be appreciated.  
> Tumblr : Jediyungling


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